


we're bound to break (and my hands are tied)

by clumsyclouds



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Songfic, angst angst angst, angsty as all hell, ish, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-20 17:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20231818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyclouds/pseuds/clumsyclouds
Summary: what if there had never been a metacrisis? what if rose refused to go back to pete's world? what then?loosely based on "rewrite the stars" from The Greatest Showman





	we're bound to break (and my hands are tied)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [A Friend](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=A+Friend).

> hey! welcome! hope you enjoy the fic as much as i enjoyed writing it <3
> 
> PRO TIP!!!!!!  
listen to the song while reading, or at least read through the lyrics for full effect!!  
alternatively, if you find it difficult to listen to songs with singing while reading something, might i suggest a very beautiful instrumental version?  
"Rewrite The Stars" by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, The Piano Guys
> 
> enjoy the reading!

Once more the Doctor saved the entirety of existence, just like old times. Except Rose wasn’t going to let go. She refused to make the same mistake once more. No, she intended to hold on for dear life. Not only because she needed it, but because he did, too. 

The Doctor had needed Donna and she'd needed him in return. So, to watch everything she’d become disappear pained Rose as much as it did him Both of them became determined to remember their adventures in her place. Rose knew that she had to help the Doctor through his grief of losing such a dear friend, but with one foot in front of the other, they would move forward. Rose had returned to his side where she belonged and all they had to do was remember those who'd been left behind, look forward to endless futures, limitless possibilities and never stop running. 

That being said, both her mother and the Doctor bordered on livid when she told them that she'd go with the Doctor. Leave Pete's World and her family behind. Her mother begged her to stay, desperate once the anger subsided, told her that she could give life another chance, she was needed and the Doctor concurred, but they were both wrong. Rose Tyler belonged in the Tardis, with the Doctor by her side. She belonged in countless worlds, saving people and running from dangers they hadn’t needed to get themselves into. 

The rush of adrenalin and euphoria that pulsed through her veins could never be recreated, though no one could say that she hadn’t tried. Torchwood, travelling, volunteer work, knitting, you name it. Rose tried nearly everything to fill the void, but nothing ever stuck, nothing ever made her feel alive again. Living without the Doctor might as well have been a death sentence. Everything felt...meaningless without him. Bleak. Dark. Too small, much like a shoe one size too small.

After plenty of tears her mother seemed to accept it. She must have known that it would always end up like this. The Doctor, too. So long as there was breath in Rose's body there would be no rest until Rose Tyler returned home. Perhaps foolishly, the Doctor let her come aboard after saying a final farewell to her mother. 

“I can’t take you back again,” he said, hand on the lever and an intense look in his eyes, verging on desperate. 

“I know,” she replied and came up beside him, covering his hands with her own. 

In a moment where everything could go wrong they pulled the lever and the floor shook beneath them. The ride was bumpier than normal, but that was probably to be expected when passing through the holes between dimensions. Most of all, it felt right. A smile tugged at her lips and despite his fears it tugged at his, too. 

-

For a moment, everything was fine. More than fine. Perfect. All of time and space and each other. What more could anyone ask for? 

“You were the one who took me with you! I didn’t force you!” she shouted, trying to keep up with his neverending pace as he hopped around the console and pressed buttons that didn’t seem to do anything at all except make strange noises. 

“Oh, but didn’t you? How could I refuse? You worm your way back into my life and expect me to say no when most of the time I can’t stop thinking about you for one second. Don’t be ridiculous.”

She knew _ exactly _ what the whole argument hid beneath the surface. It started off as a simple disagreement about nearly getting captured by the local authorities and like a snowball it grew bit by bit until neither of them remembered the inciting incident. As always with the Doctor he feared getting attached because ‘they all leave eventually’. That’s how the sob story usually went, wasn’t it? Sarah Jane, that Martha girl, Donna. Probably countless others.

Rose rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt and crossed her arms. “It’s always the same with you!” 

“The same?”

“You keep saying that our hands are tied, that it’s not meant to be and that it always ends the same, but I’m here! Look at me! I’m right here, Doctor!”

Finally, he listened and stopped. Those dreadful noises stopped and everything paused, frozen in time for a moment. The hum of the Tardis and their heavy breathing was the only audible thing between them. A storm brewed in his eyes, but there was no anger. Only fear. His bottom lip wobbled and the crease between his eyebrows deepened. 

Rose continued talking, voice lower and softer. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re my destiny, you know?. Stranger things have happened after all. ‘Cause you’re...more. I don’t know. Whenever I’m away from you it feels like something is missing. I tried to fill that hole with so many things, even before we met, but it never worked. Nothing made sense until I met you. Call me a silly human, but I’ve always felt like...like we were meant to be.”

The crease faded and his face softened. “Never think that....”

“What?” she replied, voice soft as he approached her. 

“That you’re just a silly human to me.”

Rose took his hand into hers and squeezed it as gently as she could. “Then trust me. The universe is massive and I haven’t seen enough yet. The future is miles away so it’s up to us. No one gets to say what we’re meant to be. Not time, not other people, not even death itself.”

The fear turned into sadness and it frustrated her how nothing could ever be simple, how there always had to be a downside to everything. Perhaps that was the real curse of the Time Lords: Doomed to misery in all things.

“You think it’s easy? You think I don’t want to break all the rules for you? I want nothing else. I may be able to rewrite time, but I can’t rewrite the laws of reality. We can ignore it, but that doesn’t mean it goes away.”

Rose squeezed again, taking one step closer. “Then how about the stars, eh?” She huffed out a breathy laugh and stroked her thumb over his hand. “I’m not asking for you to make it go away. All I want is to fly with you, Doctor.”

Words hung unspoken in his eyes. Sadness and longing all wrapped into one inside those warm brown eyes. How utterly unfair that she couldn’t hear what he dared not speak aloud. 

“Then let’s fly,” he said, “Rose Tyler.” 

Her name on his lips looked so right and sounded even better. Like coming home and running away all at once. The corner of his lips twitched upwards as Rose smiled wide as ever and they were off. 

The Doctor agreed to look away from reality, deciding to ‘cross that bridge when we get to it’ to which Rose promptly reminded him: _ ‘If _ we get to it.’

Avoiding reality described the Doctor more than it did Rose. She looked for opportunities to alter reality, rather than pretending it didn’t exist. Stranger things than destiny, miracles and immortality had happened to the people they met while travelling. Why couldn’t it happen to them, too? 

No, miracles weren’t impossible and perhaps the Doctor believed that, too. It certainly seemed that way whenever he stretched out his hand to Rose before snapping the Tardis doors open to a new world and a new adventure. After all, what else was there to do but run? Regardless of whether they ran to something or from it. The only thing of consequence was the Doctor's hand in Rose's, adrenaline pumping through their veins and words so tenderly spoken that none might mistake it for anyting other than love.

In summary, for a while—a long while, in fact—everything was perfect once more. 

Months and months—rapidly approaching a year—of non-stop travelling and running. They saved worlds and brought smiles ot the faces of crying children. They saw dogs with green noses and cats with blue. They loved and lost and gained. The only break they afforded themselves were a couple of days at a time in the vortex until one of them (mostly the Doctor) got cabin fever and left to find trouble elsewhere.

But no matter how high the hopes were and how fast one might run, nothing lasted forever. 

The Doctor surprised Rose with a visit to the most beautiful beach she’d ever laid her eyes upon. The sand-like dust beneath her feet swirled with the wind, shimmering in in gold and bronze as the yellow sunlight bounced off the particles. Once the Doctor gave her the ‘okay’ to swim in the dusty pink water she did so without hesitation, even pulling him down with her once he got too squeamish about ruining his suit. 

The first two hours were nothing but divine laughter filled with smiles and eye contact that lingered and precisely then was when it all went wrong. 

Rose got tired of the Doctor whining about his silly suit and stepped out of the water, attempting to squeeze out as much water as she could from her hair. Then grabbed the towel that she’d brought out, wrapped it around herself and trudged up to the Tardis doors. 

In the distance the orange sky covered light purple grass, except there was a patch of pitch black in the middle of it that caught her eye, neither of them noticed it before. After a quick change of clothes they went to investigate. Inevitably, they’d gotten themselves into trouble and Rose got stuck in quite the pickle, to put it mildly. 

Save the Doctor and all the children on the planet or save herself. 

Though she tried stalling, waiting for the Doctor to come up with something clever, time steadily ran out and she made a decision, if there had ever been one to make. With children’s lives at stake, with _ the Doctor’s _ life at stake, the choice was simple. If her time had come, then she couldn’t think of a better way to go. Rose Tyler would go out with a bang and the children wouldn’t have to cry. The Doctor would live. That was good enough for her, she thought in what she believed to be her final moments. 

Except just as the killing stroke would have been delivered came the sound of a machine she’d so closely associated with hope and safety. The wheezing, groaning call of the Tardis echoing throughout the dark chamber she’d been stuck in. A wicked smile broke out on her face while a gasp of horror spilled out of the other. 

“See ya!” she quipped as the room disappeared in front of her, only to be replaced with the inside of the Tardis doors. 

Rose turned around and saw the Doctor pushing buttons and levers. With a delighted squeal and wide grin she jumped up in his arms, burying her face in the crook of his neck. His arms wrapped around her, fists clenching her blue jacket so tightly that his knuckles must surely have whitened.

“I knew you’d come to save me! Oh, I’m so glad to be rid of those nasty bastards. I take it the children are safe?”

“But you didn’t know, did you?” he replied darkly. 

Rose let go and he pulled the lever, making the floor shake beneath them. Their eyes met and his bore into hers. So very, very dark. Neither of them broke eye contact even as the Tardis steadied inside the vortex. 

The Doctor continued. “You couldn’t have known that I would come to save you right that second. You would have died there if I’d failed.”

“Doctor—”

“No. You have _nothing_ to say to me because I almost lost you. All because you had to play the good samaritan and get yourself into trouble!”

Rose’s eyes widened. “Me? I didn’t take us to this bloody planet. Not to mention that I almost lost you, too! You have a good nerve to berate me for the ‘good samaritan’, but all those children, Doctor. Would you have done any differently?”

He swallowed and looked away.

_ Of course I wouldn’t. _

Rose heard it loud and clear without any words needed. Sometimes mystery evaded him like smoke, although he might have done that on purpose. Choosing when and when not to block her from his feelings and intentions. Rose thought it terribly unfair, the way he never allowed himself to be viewed honestly, always needing to filter himself one way or another. How dreadfully restrictive.

“Why can you never just be happy with me?” she asked. 

The Doctor flipped constantly between complete contentment and dreadful anxiety, never quite being able to settle between the two. One second he rejoiced over having her back and the next he wouldn’t stop fussing about their future. As if it mattered. 

“Why do I always have to wonder if you feel the same as I do?”

At some point in time words seemed so useless, inadequate. Their feelings towards each other and their relationship went beyond words. 'I love you' turned into a hug after a dangerous adventure, or making popcorn for two even if the other hadn't asked. At some point in time even Rose didn't need him to say anything, but at some point in time she was merely human. Words mattered, not just actions. Words without action were useless, but sometimes the reverse rang true as well. 

His eyes fell shut and his breath synced with the Tardis, calm and collected. Except his knuckles had whitened from holding onto the console so hard. Rose wouldn’t have been surprised if the Tardis felt it, too. Surely, she must have. Her and the Doctor had a telepathic bond after all. Could she feel his pain?

“You know how I feel. It’s not a secret, I’ve never tried to hide it, but sometimes things are the way they are. Sometimes miracles don’t happen and it’s time to face reality.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, clueless.

Then the Doctor looked at her with this sadness, a guilt so fierce and she could barely recognise him. His intentions dawned upon her.

The room began spinning, her head becoming light and airy and she couldn’t quite catch her bearings. Phantom hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing tight and tears filled her eyes. Surely, he couldn’t be suggesting....

“I’m sending you home,” he said, void of all emotion which was precisely how she knew he felt as devestated as her. The question of if he had any right to be, remained.

“No.”

“I’ve been working on your dimension cannon, modifying it so that I can send you back to Pete’s World. It’ll require the energy of a supernova and it took me a while, but I think it’s going to work now.”

He walked around the console so casually, avoiding her eyes like the plague all because he didn’t dare look into them. Rose’s devastation turned into a furious desperation, a final fight for her life, one might say.

“All this time. You spent _ all that time _ figuring out a way for me to stay, but instead you did this!” she said while vaguely gesturing around her. “I can’t believe you. For God’s sake, Doctor. I love you!”

_ i can’t lose him, not again i can’t not again please no not again i was so lonely i can’t lose him again i can’t go back _

Her thoughts flew around in her head as if someone had placed a whirlwind right in the middle of it all. Like a jigsaw puzzle with only one piece missing spilled out on the floor and Rose was the only one to pick up the pieces, but even if she did there was no putting them back together again, was there?

“That’s why I have to send you home. I can’t watch you die, I can’t—” His voice broke on the final words. The first sign of him being as torn up as her. She thought it would comfort her, but it didn’t. If anything, it made her feel worse. To think they’d been so close to a happy ending, yet so inevitably doomed never to reach it.

“You’re such a coward sometimes,” she muttered. 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Please, don’t—”

“Do you have any idea what it feels like to keep being sent away like a bloody child that won’t go to bed?”

“Yes,” he hissed, “because I’ve stood where you stand. I’ve hurt, too. I’ve lost people I...." 

Pain flashed in his eyes, memories he might never dare speak aloud. Though it didn't justify the actions, at least Rose found that she could understand. He'd lived a longer life than she could ever hope to, of course he'd been pushed away in same was she was being pushed away.

The Doctor's face finally softened. "Just, please, go home, for me. Go home and have...have a good life. Have a _ fantastic life. _”

Rose remembered ears too big for a face and icy blue eyes with a sadness, yet determinedness that she could never forget. A man torn to shreds by a war he carried on his shoulders, a burden he thought he was cursed to carry all on his own until they met each other. Stroke of luck or fated to be? It didn't matter. She’d been sent away then, too. So similar, yet so different. 

“You said that to me once.”

He sighed, giving her a bittersweet smile. “Then please listen this time.”

Rose began sobbing in earnest, falling down to the floor once her knees gave out. One hand clutching onto the floor and the other covering her face, uselessly pawing at her tears even though they came faster than she could wipe them away. 

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her in an instant and she let him even though a part of her wished for nothing more than to slap him into the next dimension. The unjustness alone could have fueled her if not for the utter hopelessness that zapped any and all fight out of her body. 

She’d held happiness in her hand for the briefest moment, everything she could ever have wanted, all she could ever have wished for, but it seemed bound to break no matter how she tried. Like a snowflake, melting upon contact.

“But...I love you. It can’t end like this,” she said, clinging onto him like a lifeline. “We were gonna rewrite the stars, Doctor. I promised you forever.”

He sniffled and squeezed her shaking shoulders. “Oh, Rose. It was never a promise you could have made.”

Then he cried, too. She could tell by the way his body trembled, try as he might to hide it. His breath hitched every so often and she would feel the heavy drops falling onto her head. Perhaps deep down inside her she could understand his pain and why he did what he did. Rose was no stranger to losing someone who mattered and the Doctor must have experienced loss far greater than her. He’d lost his home, too. 

“Just one more adventure,” she pleaded, sobs catching on every other word.

“One more adventure and you could be dead.”

Rose gripped onto the lapels of his suit. “One more adventure and we could find something to let me stay.”

“One is more likely than the other.”

Rose lost the battle already, she could say nothing to change his mind because the fear of losing her outweighed his happiness. A defense mechanism built up over time by which Rose stood no chance against. 

Finally, she came to a decision. Without a shadow of doubt she knew that he would send her away regardless as to whether she went willingly or not. The least she could do as a favour to herself and to spare the Doctor some pain would be to go on her own terms. Make it her decision. 

“Alright. You win,” she said, sniffling and wiping away the damp strands of hair that had stuck to her cheeks. “I’ll go. You don’t have to fight me.”

The floor steadied, her mind cleared up somewhat and Rose regained enough composure to rise to her feet. Her eyes wandered up and down the console, around the room in an attempt to commit the room to memory, though frankly she ran no risk of forgetting it. How could she? 

“Just one more night. Please, just this one thing. I’ll leave tomorrow, just....”

The Doctor nodded slowly. 

As such the story seemed to have come to its end. Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, would return to Earth, feet back on the ground and adventures in the stars turned to a mere memory. The stuff of legends would become just that. A legend. A story retold by those who might remember it. Could there even come a time when all traces of them disappeared, like breath on a mirror? If enough time passed could even the Doctor forget? Then what would remain of them? 

A story untold, days that never were, days that should have been, days that always will be. 

Come morning, or whatever that meant on the Tardis, Rose got up from the bed, put on her clothes and meandered slowly to the console room. Her fingertips swept over the walls and her feet took her into various rooms. Some rooms she’d frequented at least everyday. The galley, closet, library. Some rooms she’d never been in before, as if the Tardis stalled for time as much as Rose did. Empty storage rooms, unfurnished rooms, vacant spaces with a view of planets she didn’t recognise, a locked door that must have belonged to the Doctor. Perhaps his bedroom. 

Though it took longer than normal time flew by so quickly when Rose stepped into the console room. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen yet, but nonetheless she strolled around the console. 

“I’m gonna miss you,” she whispered, looking up at the pumping rod in the middle. It looked muted somehow, as if someone had dulled her shine. 

As the floor rattled Rose turned around to see the Doctor, hands in his pockets, eyes drifting across the room until finally landing on her. The longing written all over him didn’t faze her. She knew the feeling all too well. No, his resignation hurt the most, the way he’d done it all before and accepted that happy endings just weren’t for him. She'd always hoped that she could be the exception. 

“There has to be another way,” she said as he connected the very familiar dimension cannon to a wire leading into the Tardis console. 

“My hands are tied, Rose.”

She scoffed, not bothering to hide her bitterness. “Yet you’re the one pulling the trigger.”

The Doctor’s hand clenched into a fist, nails surely digging into the palm of his hand. 

“Please. Just say it once.”

He turned to her, took a deep breath and opened his mouth. Rose stared him down like staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Rose Tyler....” His hand trembled, hovering right above the dimension cannon. Neither of them dared to breathe, their future hung on those three words that the Doctor had evaded ever since they knew how to speak them. 

Maybe one day she would understand, maybe one day it would hurt less, but once the Doctor made his decision she could only see utter darkness.

“...I...I can’t.”

The Doctor pulled the trigger.


End file.
